Nothing says ‘home cooked food' like lentils. Just to be able to come home and heat up a previously cooked meal of lentil soup and perhaps some soaked brown rice is very nourishing. Speaking of nourishing, this recipe from Nourishing Traditions is a basic recipe but has the surprising addition of lemon juice or whey, which keeps the lentils from darkening (oxidizing) in the fridge.

My girls LOVE teriyaki. Anything teriyaki flavored is high up in their book. I had never heard of teriyaki lentils but really wanted to make it work so that I'd have another type of lunch I could put in their thermos. So I made up this recipe just for the girls, and it worked! They love it! I put about 3/4 to 1 cup of this stew in their thermos with 3/4 cup of the soaked brown rice. The lentils are a bit strong to eat by themselves, so they go perfect with the rice.

Pate is not something that I've partaken in much in my lifetime. It's a little uppity for my tastes, or so I thought. Little did I know what I was missing! And after the other night of cooking liver and having leftovers, I wasn't sure what to do with the few pieces of liver that I still had. I wanted to do something different.

So after perusing the Nourishing Traditions chicken liver pate recipe I decided to try making a beef liver pate version, but with already cooked liver. This is a great way to use up your leftovers, or even a good way to get liver into the people that won't eat a slab of liver at one sitting.

Yes, I know ‘soaked' pancakes sound kind of soggy, but believe me they aren't! These pancakes are great and they really ‘stick to your ribs'; they are very filling! Our girls, who used to eat piles of white flour pancakes, can only eat two each. They are similar to the soaked oatmeal in that this is a breakfast (or snack) that will keep you going for hours. When I first starting reading Nourishing Traditions I thought soaking flour was a bit odd. Like other grains, flours (especially whole wheat) can be hard to digest, but whole wheat (especially freshly ground) has so many more nutrients than white. So, what to do?

I had never made minestrone soup before, and now I'm glad I did! This soup is filling, yet light, if that makes sense. It has no meat in it, but the beef stock is so rich that it balances out the vegetables. The addition of beans makes it a bit heartier. And it's easy and quick to make!

Minestrone is Italian for ‘the big soup', and it can be made with any leftovers you have. I used ingredients that I had on hand and in the freezer, so this was a very inexpensive soup to make, yet extremely nutritious. What a great thing to make on the weekend, and freeze for leftovers or take for lunches during the week!

Stock/broth is probably the most basic thing you can make. In good restaurants there are simmering pots of it on the stove every day of the week. It is an ingredient in so many recipes, whether you're reading Nourishing Traditions or any other savory food cookbook. Also, stock is very good for you, please go here to the Weston A Price Foundation site to read up on the health benefits of real bone broth.

My advice for you, especially because it's winter here, is go primal and make some stock. This is one of those things that has been done since pots were invented. It just feels powerful to do something that humans have done for a millennia, and turn what people nowadays think of as ‘garbage' into something really good!